Monday, April 21, 2014

ESF women take first and second place in the Slepecky Undergraduate Research Competition

The experimental green roof, located on
top of Con Edison's The Learning
Center.  Image credit: Tiziana Susca, Columbia University
Katy Austin, an EFB undergraduate honors student has won first prize in the Slepecky Undergraduate Research Prize.  She was awarded the prize for a manuscript based on her honor's thesis "Effects of Nitrogen Deposition on Nitrogen Acquisition by Sarracenia purpurea in the Adirondack Mountains, New York, USA".  The study is in review at the journal
Botany.  Austin is first author.  Her co-authors include Mark Teece, and Jesse Crandall from ESF's Chemistry Department, and Amy Sauer and Charley Driscoll, from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Syracuse University.

Cambria Ziemer, an ERE undergraduate honors student tied for second place honors.  Ziemer completed her honor's thesis the past summer on "Boundary Layer Conditions of a Shrub Willow Evapotranspiration Cover Syracuse, NY". She worked with Wendong Tao, in ESF's Department of Environmental and Resource Engineering, and Tony Eallonardo, a Scientist with O'Brien and Gere.

The award presentation followed a lecture by Dr. Patricia J. Culligan of  Columbia University, on Green Roofs and Urban Stormwater Management, which featured projects under evaluation at Columbia University and around New York City.  Dr.  Culligan is a leader in the field of water resources and urban sustainability.  In addition to being a Professor, she co-directs the Columbia University Earth Institute’s Urban Design Lab and is the director of an innovative, joint interdisciplinary Ph.D. program between Columbia Engineering and the Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation that focuses on designs for future cites, including digital city scenarios.

The Slepecky Lectureship and Undergraduate Prize has been endowed by family, friends and colleagues to honor Syracuse University professor Norma Slepecky, who died in 2001. Dr. Slepecky was a distinguished auditory neuranatomist and member of the Institute for Sensory Research.  She was a passionate researcher and an advocate for undergraduate student research. Dr. Slepecky hoped that her legacy, with the support of the endowment, would continue to encourage young women to conduct research. As stewards of the Lectureship and Prize, SU WiSE annually coordinates the undergraduate award and lecture by a noted woman scholar and a celebration in Dr. Slepecky’s memory.